


Evening the Odds

by Zorianne



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Characters meeting different versions of themselves, Fix-It, M/M, universe hopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:41:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22274242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zorianne/pseuds/Zorianne
Summary: After an encounter with versions of themselves from other universes, Aziraphale and Crowley try to figure out why one of the alternate Crowleys was such a wanker.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 76
Kudos: 514
Collections: the Good Omens Shitscript Cinematic Universe





	Evening the Odds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RainyDayDecaf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyDayDecaf/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Odd One Out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22262620) by [RainyDayDecaf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyDayDecaf/pseuds/RainyDayDecaf). 



> So I read RainyDayDecaf's "The Odd One Out", then read most of the 1992 screenplay. And it occurred to me that that Crowley actually DID sound a bit familiar. Then this happened.
> 
> (I recommend reading "The Odd One Out" first or this may not make much sense.)

It was still bothering Aziraphale the next day. 

There had been some sort of cosmic kerfluffle that had resulted in several Crowleys and Aziraphales from adjacent universes being temporarily displaced into theirs. They'd gotten the other Crowleys and Aziraphales sent back to their respective universes, more or less. Happily, the Aziraphale who’d arrived with the perplexingly awful Crowley had ended up going with one of the other pairs, a Crowley and Azira who had been married for ages, to take over Azira’s bookshop while they retired to the South Downs, and the perplexingly awful Crowley had been sent back alone. 

But it was still bothering him. 

“What do you think made him so mean?” Aziraphale finally asked _his_ Crowley, who was sitting on the couch in the back room of the bookstore as they drank a lovely red Bordeaux. 

“Who?” asked Crowley, looking up from his phone as he took the newly refilled wine glass Aziraphale offered him.

“That _awful_ ‘Crowley’.” Aziraphale couldn’t help but think he didn’t deserve to even be _called_ Crowley, not when the other two Crowleys had been perfectly lovely demons, even as different as they all had been from his own Crowley. “Do you, well... do you suppose he suffered some terrible trauma the rest of you managed to avoid?” he mused. It had been clear that all four universes had had some significant differences in how things worked and their relationships with their respective head offices. Surely there had to be some _reason_ behind how different he'd acted.

“Pretty sure we all had _trauma,_ angel,” Crowley snorted. “Falling isn’t exactly un-traumatic.” He took a sip of the wine, frowning. “No, for my money, he’s just a wanker.” 

“Still,” Aziraphale said, fretting a little, “I wish we could have somehow helped him as well.” 

Crowley looked confused and vaguely disgusted. “Why the Somewhere would you even want to, angel? He was a right arsehole to you. Well, not _you_ you. The other you. For my money, he deserved everything he got and then some.” 

“Well, yes, but… but he was still _you_.” Aziraphale waved a hand at Crowley. “ _Not_ 'you you', obviously, but... oh, you know what I mean,” he huffed in frustration. He didn’t like the thought of being unable to help _any_ Crowley who might need it, no matter how disagreeable.

“Nah, he was different. Didn’t feel at all like the other ‘ _me_ s’. He’s lucky I didn’t punch him in the face, the way he was talking about yo-- the other you.” 

Aziraphale bolt upright. “Wait! What if that’s it?”

“Whazzit?”

“What if he wasn’t you?”

“'Course he wasn’t me," the demon snorted, "he was from a different universe.” Crowley looked at him strangely.

“No, I mean--” Aziraphale turned to Crowley, a look of mixed revelation, glee, and horror on his face. “What if there was some other demon who got sent to cause trouble in Eden? An _entirely different demon_?”

“You mean, _he's_ someone else, and there’s another _me_ in his universe? But not named Crowley?”

“Yes! Maybe. Oh, I don’t know!” Aziraphale wrung his hands. “It’s just-- what if the _you_ in that universe didn’t... fall? Or, or simply wasn’t the demon who was assigned to Eden?”

“That doesn’t….” Crowley stared at nothing, thunderstruck by his own revelation. “Fuck! We’re idiots, angel! Well, okay, I’m an idiot. You’re the genius who actually figured it out.” He turned to Aziraphale and held both the angel’s hands in his own. “Angel. Think about it. What wanker do we know who would call you stupid, tell you that you should die, and really, _really_ should have fallen a long time ago.”

Realization dawning on his features, Aziraphale stared at him, aghast. “Gabriel?” he whispered.

“Gabriel,” Crowley confirmed grimly. 

\---

It took several weeks, a considerable amount of traveling between universes, a good deal of explaining, and not nearly as much cajoling as they’d expected, but eventually, two Aziraphales and one and a half Crowleys were in a bookstore in an entirely different London.

“I’m not sure I quite follow, Zira,” said the Aziraphale who was currently running his counterpart’s (Azira’s) bookstore. He was now going by the name Ezra, and had settled in quite nicely while his host Aziraphale-and-Crowley were enjoying their new cottage in the South Downs. 

“Simply put, your Crowley wasn’t really Crowley,” Aziraphale explained. “Er, I mean, his _name_ was Crowley, or Crawley, originally I suppose --”

“Actually it was Groveley,” Ezra offered. “His name was Groveley when I met him in Eden, but he changed it. Several times, in fact, though he eventually settled on Anthony G. Crowley.”

Crowley snorted, “ _G._ , huh? Naturally.” 

“Er, yes," Aziraphale continued, "well, for whatever reason, in your home universe, the angel who fell and became the serpent of Eden was originally Gabriel.” 

Ezra nodded. “Yes, of course. I worked that out early on, though naturally we never _discussed_ such things.”

Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged glances. 

“But I wasn’t,” Crowley said. “Gabriel, I mean. I wasn't Gabriel before I fell. Neither were the other Crowleys you met.”

"Okay," Ezra said, still looking a bit puzzled.

“Anyway, once we figured that out,” Aziraphale said, beaming, “we thought it only fair to check in on, well, _him_.” He nodded at the angel behind him who was gazing around the shop curiously. He looked completely out of his depth and utterly delighted by it. 

“Oh, hi! I’m Jeremiel,” the very much not fallen angel with golden eyes and dark red hair introduced himself with a grin. He wore sunglasses, but they were golden as well, and his fashionably modern outfit was in shades of silvery gray. “I’m from your universe, I guess? I‘m s’pposed to be the angel in charge of answering questions, but... I’ve been stuck in the most deadly dull out-of-the-way corner of heaven they could find for me ever since the Fall. Never been to Earth before, any Earth. Any chance you could show me around?”

“Oh,” breathed Ezra. “I'd be delighted. How _lovely_ to meet you!”


End file.
